Montevideo Mondays (XIII)
Lost in that parallel galaxy known as the alternative scene of bandcamp music labels, a record with four tracks arrived last week in my inbox. A friend recommended me to listen Abdul and his most recent effort, “Pareidolia”, which was released a couple of months ago.
“Pareidolia” is well known as a sort of psychological reaction where a rare, vague stimulus (maybe an image) is erratically perceived as something well known. It’s like finding a face in a plate of food.
So the name of the record sets the rules, and Abdul´s songs tend to channel the title: they present themselves as abstract pieces of well known instruments and some electro touches that stay instrumental but, after some minutes became more like a blurry sound. However, they never lose their pleasant vibe, something that seems to come from a very intimate place, with inspiration and relaxation as the main goal. It´s an invitation of a musician with worries of the commercial etiquette and form that sometimes seems to be implanted in our heads. Here the music seems like a search and reflection process. It’s defined by the constant experimentation with ideas… all exposed in a very neat music environment with no angular sounds… more focused on a quiet, gentle vibe. There is also a subtle influence of Brazilian and black 70s music that, although difficult to detect, can be heard throughout the music. In these songs, you can´t hang onto anything; the best option is to let yourself go with every track.
“Pareidolia” (you can get it for free, here) is more than this EP of four tracks. It is actually a selection of discarded songs of “Naoplia”, which came at the beginnings of 2013. By the way, that record and these songs are full analog-recorded. Here´s one of those songs:
Also the artist has written a blog about the recording process. If you can read spanish, click here.
